More than a Third of Russian Lawyers have had Their Rights Violated by Officials, Survey Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 20 – The Moscow Institute for Law and Public Policy says in a new report based on a poll of Russian lawyers that 34.7 percent of them had encountered violations of their professional rights by prison officials, the police and investigators (The Thorny Path of Forming a Russian Lawyers Corps (in Russian at advdefence.ilpp.ru/).

            The survey also found that 54.5 percent of the lawyers had encountered cases where the rights of their clients were compromised by involving others than lawyers in the supposed defense of those charged. And 9.4 percent said that they had been subject to physical abuse by officials.

            The report concludes that “law enforcement organs have in their possession a sufficiently broad spectrum of means of blocking lawyers from carrying out their professional activity.” Moreover, such violations are massive in Russia today, and this violation of the rights of lawyers is critical because it undermines the rights of defendants.